Introduction to business informatics with Greenfoot using the example of airport baggage handling

  • Authors:
  • Detlef Rick;Julia Ludwig;Sebastian Meyer;Carsten Rehder;Ingrid Schirmer

  • Affiliations:
  • Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany;Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany;Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany;Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany;Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 10th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Complexity being an essential part of our everyday and occupational life, the following question arises: Which fundamental skills do pupils need to develop, in order to be well prepared for handling future complex technological, and social, systems? We believe that general education should address this issue by cultivating computational---or rather "informatical"--- thinking, i. e. an informatical view on the world. The educational programming environment Greenfoot consolidates the strengths of traditional microworlds with Java's scalability [1], thus enabling the provision of rather complex systems, most notably simulations of material or traffic streams. In Greenfoot, these systems can be interactively explored and manipulated. Thus Greenfoot is not only an excellent learning environment for introductory programming courses but it is also particularly well suited to address more application-oriented issues in computer science. In a one week school project pupils in their eighth year were presented with a Greenfoot simulation of a highly simplified airport baggage handling system. Using the example of baggage handling, they got involved not only with programming but also with applied computing, namely with issues related to the field of Business Informatics (BI, German Wirtschaftsinformatik). Our aim in including applied computing issues in the school project was to present a broad image of computer science.